Junta starts evicting the destitute

Burma's junta has started evicting destitute families from cyclone relief centres, concerned the 'tented villages' might become permanent.

"It is better that they move to their homes where they are more stable," a government official said at one camp where people have been given a deadline to clear out. "Here, they are relying on donations and it is not stable."

Locals and aid workers said 39 camps in the immediate vicinity of Kyauktan, 19 miles south of Rangoon, were being cleared out as part of a general eviction plan.

"We knew we had to go at some point but we had hoped for more support," 21-year-old trishaw driver Kyaw Moe Thu said as he trudged out of the camp with his five brothers and sisters, the youngest of whom is just two-years old.

They had been given 20 bamboo poles and some tarpaulins to help rebuild their lives in the Irrawaddy delta, where 134,000 people were left dead or missing by Cyclone Nargis on May 2.

Four weeks after the disaster, the United Nations says fewer than one in two of the 2.4 million people affected by the cyclone have received any form of help from either the government, or international or local aid groups.

Rumours are flying around the international aid community in Rangoon that the evictions are occurring in state-run refugee centres across the delta.

The UN, which has local and foreign aid workers in the delta, said it did not know if that was the case.

"We certainly don't endorse premature return to where there are no services, and any forced or coerced movement is completely unacceptable," UN spokeswoman Amanda Pitt said.

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